Heaven Hold Us

by Okami Rayne

The War is over. But the wounded remain. In a world struggling for hope amidst terrible loss, the Tailed-Beast chakra that saved Shikamaru's life on the battlefield may yet cost him his soul. As darkness encroaches upon the hard-won light, there's only one man Naruto can turn to for help. A man no more a stranger to the darkness than Shikamaru himself. Sasuke. [BtB Post-War]

10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: NARUTO and its characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Original characters (Tsubasa Hibari © TA. RAYNE) and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement intended.

Title: Heaven Hold Us

Pairings: ShikaNeji, KakaGen, InoKiba, Hiashi/OC, NaruSasu

Rating: M / R (language, themes, violence, sexual scenes etc.)

Genre: Drama/Angst/General

Summary: The War is over. But the wounded remain. In a world struggling for hope amidst terrible loss, the Tailed-Beast chakra that saved Shikamaru's life on the battlefield may yet cost him his soul. As darkness encroaches upon the hard-won light, there's only one man Naruto can turn to for help. A man no more a stranger to the darkness than Shikamaru himself. Sasuke. [BtB Post-War]

Timeline: Post Fourth Shinobi World War. 4 months after the War.

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HEAVEN HOLD US

X

by Okami Rayne

Hissing filled the darkness. Defined it. Became endless and unbroken, a slow-rising sound that hit the brim of the tilting void and spilled into his veins – chemical, sterile – a flood of black stinging rain pouring into his system, into his skull, fluids that moved like frequencies – fizzing, droning, clicking – filling his ears, his head, his whole damn world with the crackling white noise of a bad transmission, growing louder, and louder, and—

"Naruto. Kiba. Sitrep?"

"Sitrep? Really, Hyūga? You're takin' this a little too seriously, don't you think?"

A buzzing through the team radio-line, half static, half Aburame insect-drone. "You'd be wise to heed Neji and take it seriously too, Kiba. Why? Because as Shikamaru repeatedly told you, the Nara deer are particularly aggressive during the rutting season."

"Yeah well, if I hadn't been laid for as long as some of these horned donkeys, I'd probably get a little pissy myself. Guess you can relate, huh Shino?"

Naruto's quiet snicker tapered into a cough as Neji's voice cut down the line, a cold blade across the eardrums.

"Cut the chatter. Sitrep. Now."

"Yeah, yeah, calm your tits, Highness. Akamaru's got a hot scent. Following him eastward and movin' downwind. Visibility is for crap. Eyes open, Team 10! Good luck seein' shit in this fog and rain."

Another crackle down the line, sounding suspiciously like Chōji's crisp packet before his voice crunched out around a mouthful. "We'll manag—"

"The hell did I just hear?!" Kiba squawked, with Naruto not a half-second behind.

"Chōji, are you EATING right now?"

"Hey, I'm allowed. Jutsu privileges."

Outraged, Kiba's voice climbed an octave. "Bullshit! Shikamaru, are you hearin' this? We all agreed to your stupid 'No Food Rule" and—"

"Kiba!" Ino snapped. "Can you please focus here? You said eyes open. Eyes open for…?"

"Huh? Oh, right. There's bunch of horny antlerheads heading your way."

"Antlerheads?" Sai piped up.

"Yeah. You know. The deer with dicks. Stags. Studs. Whatever."

"Wooow," was all Ino could manage in response to that, stretching the word like she was winding up for an earful.

Neji beat her to it, his sigh sounding out like a gale-force wind on the airwaves. "Kiba, if you don't—"

"Deer with dicks, huh?" Tenten intercepted. "Real creative, Inuzuka. Can't wait to hear what you call the females."

"Dickless baldies."

The team channel crackled in speechless static for a long and awkward second.

"Wooow…" sang Chōji in a poor imitation of Ino. A spatter of shared laughter broke up the line, staccato snorts and chuckles from the other Chūnin.

"I give up," Ino huffed with false pique. "This is why I can't take you fancy places, Kiba. I am doomed to hole-in-the-wall restaurants foreeeevveerrr."

"What?" Kiba growled, but there was a grin in his voice. "Like anyone chowing down on prime meat cares if it had a dick or not."

"Oh my god, my point just sailed straight over your stupid pirate-grinning head, didn't it?"

"What? I ain't plannin' on getting frisky with my food, Princess. I don't give a damn what's under the deer's skirt when all I'm thinking right now is tenderloin, shank, ribs…"

"Kiba…" Naruto groaned pitifully behind him, the high whine of his stomach rolling out a starved and plaintive note. "Please shut up and stop talkin' about food."

"Please shut up and stop talking altogether!" Ino chirped a little too brightly.

"What was that, sweetheart? Can't hear you above the sounds of my stomach cannibalisin' itself—"

"Inuzuka," Neji crooned with the softest strain of patience, which suggested he was about to totally lose his shit. "I swear to all the Gods if you don't sto—"

"You what? Hah? Can't hear you, Hyūga, you're breaking up. Rain's really comin' down, ain't it? Stick? Ass? What? Yeah? Over and out." A few sharp clicks as Kiba fiddled with his mic in a bid to mute it. "Ugh. Finally. Alone at last, lovebird."

Naruto offered a distracted, "What?"

"What do you mean, what? I mean we've gone dark. Off the grid. Radio silent. Crickets. Nada."

"I know what 'gone dark' means, jackass. What for?"

"Food, obviously. We got a new directive. I say we pick off one of the stragglers. Help thin the herd. Do our apex predator part. Yeah? You with me?"

Naruto gave it a two-beat consideration then huffed. "Yeah, right. Shikamaru'll kill you."

"Naw, he'll be sleeping his ass off in his dry 'n cozy little tent. He won't even notice. Heck, he wasn't even on the line. Lazy bastard. Bet he's catching a nap. Love how we gotta do all the legwork on this Nara safari."

"Hey, lay off. He broke his leg."

"Broke. Past tense. Cast came off days ago. Though I'm betting he can walk faster than you're runnin' right now. Man, you're slow today. And weirdly quiet. What's up with that?"

Naruto growled, his voice carrying a frown. "I'm pacing myself, okay? I'm wet and whacked. Quit whining at me."

"Pfft. Some hero. You better not be restin' on your laurels back there. Just because you beat Pein, doesn't mean you get to slack off."

"Not slackin' off. I'm too hungry to run myself stupid through this place."

"No shit. Why the hell do you think I've got this gameplan in the works to get us some food, you idiot?"

"You're serious?" Naruto blurted, a twinge of horror plucking a high note from his husky tones. "Food? From here? No way. I'm not eating one of Shikamaru's pets, you psycho!"

"They're wild, you idiot. Game animals. They're not pets!"

"But don't the Nara name them? I mean, they're super smart aren't they? You know, like they remember faces, read emotions, follow orders?"

"Yeah? So do some of Shino's insects, so what?"

"So you won't catch me eating any super smart bugs no matter how hungry I...oh…wait…" Naruto's groan choked off on a low gagging sound, his words catching in strangled fragments at the back of his throat. "Back when I was…t-training…at Mount M-Myōboku…there was this…ugh…platter…of giant bu—"

"NOPE! Don't wanna know. Though I doubt it'd kill my appetite at this point. Ugh. Would you just balls it up and get on board? It's just a stupid deer."

"Yeah, and Akamaru's just a stupid dog."

"The fuck did you just say?"

"I said we're gonna lose Akamaru in this fog."

"Argh. Stupid deer. Fine. You'd rather eat Shikamaru's 'Stupid Bird' instead?"

"WHAT? No! For the last time, I'm not eating anything from this forest. It's Nara property and it's…it's just wrong."

"I can make it look like an accident."

"C'mon, would you stop? It's just getting more and more messed up, Kiba."

"Hey, I didn't make the rules. Survival of the most adaptive. Man, you'd be dead in the wild."

"I can be adaptive. I told you, on Mount Myōboku I—"

"Again, NOPE. I can't believe Shikamaru let Chōji snack while the rest of us starve and die of exposure. Did you even hear his reasoning? 'No food guys, 'cause my super-smart precious deer buddies, who-mean-way-more-to-me-than-any-of-you, will smell you comin'."

Naruto's voice flattened out drily. "That's what you heard, huh? In that lady voice too?"

"I mean c'mon. Smell. SMELL? Tryin' to teach me my own trade. Like I'd screw up a hunt by moving upwind after a meal. I'm a freakin' Inuzuka! Besides, not all of us stink of Ichiraku's after we eat. I can mask my damn scent. I know how to hunt. Gimme a break."

"This isn't a hunt, you know? We're supposed to be herding the—dammit, Kiba! Ramen? Really? You gotta go mentioning that!"

"I didn't say ramen, dipshit, I said Ichiraku's – and hey, think about it: herding, hunting. Same difference really."

"Except for the blood and death part."

"No problem. I can make a kill without blood."

"Shikamaru won't care about the blood part, he'll care about the death part."

"I told you; he won't even know. How many deer are already missin' anyways? So, one little lamefoot goes wandering off the Nara property line and onto a barbecue grill — who's counting?"

"Take a wild guess," Naruto deadpanned. "He'll kill you."

"Bleedin' balls, he won't know. Gah! Why are you makin' this sound so bad? Like it ain't nature runnin' its course. Never took you for a genin boy scout even if the rank still fits."

Naruto gave no reply, despite the old 'genin' jibe, which usually pushed his bright orange buttons and set off sirens in his reactive yellow head.

Sniffing, Kiba cleared his throat at the lack of response. "No bite? Shit, Naruto, are you actually maturing?"

Naruto snorted softly, oddly passive as he murmured, "Shut up, Kiba."

Surprised, Kiba gave a growly laugh, sounding uncomfortable with the threat of awkward silence from their resident loudmouth. "Well, that's weak. What happened to our rule-breakin' knucklehead? You tryin' to revamp your image there? Ah, I knew it. This hero crap has totally gone to your head."

Naruto said nothing.

Kiba sighed obnoxiously. "Fine. Starve. You can hold out for noodles all you want, but I'm not gonna be held responsible for what I do to one of these frolickin' forest fuckers if I don't get fed in the next ten minutes!"

What Kiba did to those 'Frolickin' Forest Fuckers', precisely ten minutes later, was absolutely fuck all.

Figures.

Shikamaru smiled, shaking his head in amazement.

Idiot still doesn't know he's broadcasting to the entire team…

Possibly the entire forest. By the time Kiba hit his bitching stride, just twelve minutes later, he was still cussing out Shikamaru's entire lineage and dishing out death sentences to the local wildlife. But he made no move to execute anything. Shikamaru had to credit Kiba the energy, and the colourful vocabulary, despite all claims of depleted brain function and moral responsibility on account of hunger. Famished or not, the Inuzuka was still pulling his weight and doing his job, despite the ongoing threats to the 'horned donkeys', 'forest fuckers', and 'antlerheads'.

Shikamaru didn't mind it.

There wasn't any bite in Kiba's incessant barking.

Besides, his tirade classed as free theatre.

No one had intercepted him.

Not even Neji.

Which told Shikamaru one of two things; either the rest of the teams were listening in with sadistic amusement, or they'd cut their feeds to avoid the masochism of listening to Kiba's psychological descent into the role of Big Bad Wolf. While Shikamaru would've bet a Shogi piece on Neji having switched off the madness chattering in his ear, the shadow-nin himself belonged to the mildly sadomasochistic camp that took perverse delight in hearing Kiba's abject misery because it distracted him from his own.

Ugh. Really should've caught a nap…

He'd been parked in the same damp and claustrophobic spot for two hours.

Under the right circumstances, I could've pulled off a mini siesta…

Circumstances that didn't involve being folded five ways into a portable 'pack-in and pack-up' hunting blind that he'd last used when he was ten. The stupid thing sat lopsided on its broken bones, forcing Shikamaru into the kinds of full-body stress positions T&I liked handing out to perps behind bars.

Flexing his back, Shikamaru cracked his neck one way and then the other.

No powernaps in the cards today.

And that honestly had less to do with his physical discomfort than it did his tactical role in all this. Even if he hadn't been twisted up like a human pretzel, he was still serving as Human HQ for this domestic side-op, issued by none other than Nara Shikaku himself.

Operation Round Up, a.k.a. Nara Deer Recovery.

During Pein's attack, the deer had fled the sanctuary of the Nara Forest in a wild and uncoordinated panic, scattering in all directions. Without the protection of the clan, not only did predator dinner bells start ringing, but it declared open season for every hunter in the Land of Fire. Those looking to trade in the underground wet markets; those wanting to harvest medicinal secrets via ethnobiological research; or that particular strain of scum looking to bag a prize for their wall so they could boast to their asshole sport-killer friends that they nailed a Nara 'spirit animal'.

Shikamaru grit his teeth at the thought.

The Nara deer were a unique breed, coveted by pharmacists and trophy-junkies alike. Larger, stronger, far more robust and intelligent than typical deer, making them a notably challenging and prestigious catch – or kill. Outside of the preservation of the Nara Forest they were vulnerable, despite their agility and survival smarts.

God damn Pein.

In the fallout of Konoha's destruction, the herd had splintered into three groups, each driven further away by the ruckus of the village's reconstruction. Shikamaru's old man had dispatched four squads of Nara shinobi to marshal the wandering animals before they drifted beyond Konoha's recoverable borders. So far, the squads had managed to usher the deer in the right direction, narrowing the three herds down to two, but Shikaku had been forced to recall the teams due to a nasty outbreak of CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease), which Pein's Giant Multi-Headed Dog Summon had decided to crap out on Konoha's doorstep, reintroducing the fatal disease into the surrounding forests. The Nara squads had mobilised fast to contain the infection and quarantine contaminated sites, but there'd been sacrifices amongst the herd, both from culling and from deer succumbing to the disease itself.

Hence, Operation Round Up for the surviving herd.

"Fix it," was all Shikaku had said to his son, bestowing all his trust but none of his time. Along with the CWD outbreak, he'd had other things to handle.

Seeing the strain in his old man's eyes, Shikamaru hadn't asked what those other things were – he already knew. So Shikamaru had shut his mouth, picked his players, and organised the effort to corral the deer back home. Something he itched to be doing more actively. Despite the benefit of not having to hoof it through the rain, Shikamaru would've preferred a more hands-on role in the effort this time.

Isn't about what I want, it's about what works.

This plan would work.

It had to.

With nothing to do but watch, wait, and coordinate efforts, Kiba's radio bitch-fest offered decent enough entertainment. Though the quality of said entertainment diminished somewhat when the act switched from comedy duo to a one-man show the second Naruto decided to quieten down and bow out.

Not like him…

Concern pinged somewhere on Shikamaru's 'troublesome' radar.

He dismissed it.

He's probably tired…hungry…cold…

Naruto had said as much, in less words too: 'wet and whacked'. No kidding. The day had been cursed with the unholy trinity of empty stomachs, a gruelling task, and conspiring weather. Three hours into the deer-herding exercise and the heavens still seemed hellbent on pounding the world into a wet misty ripple.

What a damn drag…

Maybe Shikamaru had jinxed them. The sky had been clear when they'd set off. Being stationed for half hour stretches at a time, Shikamaru had lain at the base of a tree and yawned his way through the first 30 minutes of the mission whilst everyone mobilised. To avoid nodding off, he'd hoped for clouds to entertain him, putting out a cosmic order for fluffy white billows only to receive a troublesome black thunderhead with torrential downpour to boot. Enter in his present accommodations. Fortunately, by some small mercy, the wind chill remained mild. Good thing too, or he'd have been freezing his ass off without the benefit of momentum, stuck as he was for the next 30-minute stretch.

No use complaining…

He'd sooner listen to Kiba's psychological breakdown.

Although, given the timing and distance, he could probably get eyes on it too.

Crouched a few hundred yards away from the prattling dog-nin, perfectly concealed within the cramped and crooked confines of his canvas torture chamber, Shikamaru wiped the tiredness from his face, raised a slim spotting scope to his eye, and tracked Kiba and Naruto's progress. Not exactly a hot pursuit, but at least they were on course. The bucks had passed by about 10 minutes ago. Tuning back in to Kiba's ongoing rant, Shikamaru's brow sketched upward as he picked up the latest thread of the dog-nin's half-baked plan for a 'free food' side quest.

"I'm tellin' you, I can pull this off," Kiba was saying, slinking along the dripping trail with his body held low, moving with the easy grace of a predator despite being pelted by rain, his smooth lope at total odds with Naruto's tired stomp, the Jinchūriki lagging several paces behind, bobbing in and out of the mists, his blond spikes plastered to his drawn face. "Just go with it, lovebird. It's fool-proof, fail-proof, freakin' genius."

"Shikamaru'll kill you," Naruto repeated flatly, falling back on his original statement, still sounding way too wiped to present a more compelling argument.

And true to form, Kiba was not compelled in the slightest. "Nah, he won't. Told you, I can plead diminished responsibility. Pretend I went Beast Mode. Or that Akamaru went feral. Nature's Law. That's what happens when you starve a ninken. Anythin' that moves is meat. What's my boy, Nara, gonna do?"

Smirking, Shikamaru tapped the comms mic at his throat, "Your boy, Nara, is gonna pretend that he hasn't been listening to you stupidly incriminate yourself on an open line for the past half hour, Kiba."

Through the scope, Shikamaru watched Kiba flinch and freeze, his eyes bugging out before annoyance washed the panic from his rain-streaked face.

"Ah, fuck. Thought I tuned you out."

"Yeah, no. You turned up the volume."

"Shiiiit. This line is open to everyone?"

"Unfortunately," Ino and Sakura chorused, tutting like birds in the surrounding trees, while Tenten seemed more amused, singing out in a faux scary voice, "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wol—"

"You can't sing for shit," Kiba shot back, hitting nothing. Tenten laughed.

"Too bad, Inuzuka," Shikamaru drawled. "The plan sounded 'fool-proof, fail-proof, freakin' genius' for sure."

"Ah, balls." Sighing out his defeat, Kiba slicked his fingers back through his sopping hair and continued on at a kicked-dog slink. "Look, no offence, Shikamaru. I got big animal love for your forest family and all that, but just like fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, my stomach's gotta eat, buddy."

Shikamaru's chuckle rasped down the line, smoky-quiet. "Longer you talk, longer this takes. Pick up the pace and you'll get fed. You're coming up on the game trail. The stags passed through about 10 minutes ago, so keep at it. Sakura, Sai, you got that escape terrain covered?"

They answered together. "Yes."

"You're a real prick, Shikamaru," Kiba grumbled, shifting his trajectory in total synch with Akamaru whilst Naruto veered a wobbly course-correction behind him, almost stumbling into a patch of nettles. "All this effort we're putting in and no venison jerky at the end of it? You shoulda taken me on that pig hunt with Ino and Chōji a few weeks back, instead'a this "round 'em up" rodeo."

"What can I say? Needed your expert nose."

Kiba gnashed a laugh between his grinning teeth. "I can't eat your flattery, Shikamaru."

"It was a fact, not flattery. But whatever makes you feel better, Kiba."

"I feel like prick isn't a strong enough word for you right now."

Shikamaru supressed a grin and watched as Kiba circled a middle finger above his sopping head, aiming to catch Shikamaru in his 'screw you' radius no matter where the shadow-nin was stationed.

"Little to your left," Shikamaru guided.

Kiba stopped walking, rotated a fraction to his left, held up both middle fingers with a savage grin, and pumped his wrists in a little 'up yours' dance, bopping on the spot like a cage fighter trying to psych out his opponent.

Smirking, Shikamaru shook his head.

If Neji wasn't rolling his Byakugan eyes heavenward, then he'd be facepalming his own Gentle Fist at this point. Kiba must've had the same idea because he began to rotate on the spot, giving his two fingered salute to the entire forest and everything in it. Shikamaru might've laughed at Kiba's antics, if his amusement hadn't faltered on the odd lack of laughter and engagement from Naruto.

That felt off.

Naruto was always in on the clowning action.

Before Shikamaru could swivel the scope to get eyes on Naruto, Kiba took off again, forcing Shikamaru to keep the dog-nin in his sights. Akamaru had already gone on ahead.

"Shake a leg, lovebird, or I'm gonna leave you in my dust out here. Yo, Shikamaru? You couldn't get Kakashi-sensei's pack to help us out with this?"

Adjusting his crouch to work some feeling back into his cramped thighs, Shikamaru winced at the twinge in his right leg before he answered, "Kakashi-sensei's on a mission. The ninken were a no-go. Look, I appreciate this. I'll make it up to you in grilled whatever-you-want. Just keep focus, okay?"

"Are you kiddin' me? Hunger keeps me sharp. Can't say the same for our boy wonder over here. Hey, you okay back there, Hero?"

"Would you quit callin' me that," Naruto groused, a strained edge in his voice. "I'm fine."

Shikamaru cocked his ear, felt that ping in his gut again. Swivelling on his haunches, he swung the scope to track Naruto, tweaked the lens to zoom in closer, and brought Naruto's face into jerky focus. Hard to keep a steady image with the zoom so close, but Shikamaru caught a glimpse of the hot flush burning across the Jinchūriki's whiskered cheeks – though that might've been from exertion rather than embarrassment. Naruto was moving sluggishly through the downpour, weaving a little, his expression pinched and lined with strain.

Hmn. He wasn't like this earlier.

Squinting through the scope, Shikamaru observed Naruto for a moment longer, his own expression pulling into a frown with every passing second. Reaching with his free hand, he adjusted the channel on his mic — with way more skill and success than Kiba had done — to cut the team intercom and tap a secure line.

"Neji," Shikamaru called. "You hear me?"

"Affirmative. Go for Hyūga."

Biting back a chuckle, Shikamaru's brows bobbed in amusement. Ah, Hyūga Neji. Classic rule-stickler. A fond smile twisted the shadow-nin's lips. "Oh, so it's like that, huh? I think my inferior rank just quivered in its boots, senpai."

It took Neji a second to register the root-cause of the sarcasm, before an eloquent snort followed, the faintest trace of embarrassment underlying his response. "Ah. Operational habit when I'm in the field. We do learn comms procedure for a reason, Shikamaru."

"Uh huh. Very professional mission-speak, Hyūga."

"It's called radio discipline. That idiot, Kiba, has driven me to it."

"Oh yeah…?" Shikamaru teased out the words distractedly, his gaze still pinned on Naruto through the scope, zooming back out to keep the Jinchūriki in focus. "So, you were listening in the whole time, huh?"

"Don't be absurd. Tenten gave me the full running commentary – whilst running. It was infuriating."

"That takes commitment. Be glad it wasn't Lee."

"Tch! Why did we even equip Kiba with a mic? He doesn't need to talk to track. There's something to be said for showing card tricks to a dog."

Shikamaru mock-winced. "Hate to back his corner, Neji, but you're definitely taking this way too seriously."

"Because he's not taking it seriously enough. If he gets gored or trampled to death, it's a weight off my conscience knowing I acted professionally."

"Like that's ever in question."

"I'm glad this is amusing to you. For the sake of my sanity – and Kiba's safeguarding against what will happen when I finally lose it – please factor in a restricted communication zone next time, Shikamaru."

Glancing sidelong at his earbud, Shikamaru gave a quiet chuckle. "Ah, there you go again, getting me all hot and bothered with the mission-speak."

Neji gave a pointed pause, designed to exude forbearance, though Shikamaru could detect the warmth and amusement suffusing those deep tones. "As much as I enjoy hearing your voice in my ear, Shikamaru, is there a reason for the stage whisper? I'm in the middle of corralling your runaway stragglers with Tenten."

"Naruto's looking off."

"Off? What do you mean 'off'? Off how?"

"Off base." Pressing closer to the camouflage netting, Shikamaru tucked his bruised elbows to his aching sides and held steady, continuing to draw a bead on Naruto's listless movements, less discernible now through the thickening fog. "Shit. He's moving beyond the range of my scope. But not yours. You follow?"

"I understand. Let me secure things at my end, then I'll scan his tenketsu and contact you on this channel. Standby."

"Copy that," Shikamaru muttered on rote, eyes narrowed as he switched the spotting scope out for a pair of binoculars. Pointless. That fog wasn't forgiving.

Need to get moving…

He flash-checked the watch strapped to his wrist. Five minutes and he'd collapse the hunting blind and haul ass to the next checkpoint.

Yeah, if I can get the feeling back in my legs…

Shifting around uncomfortably, Shikamaru hunkered down into a scoliotic squat, bent over all wrong and grunting at the ache in his back, trying to occupy his mind with the gameplan while he waited on Neji to check back in, listening out for static as the rain thinned to a drizzle.

Should have this wrapped up within the next couple of hours.

With Neji and Tenten running oversight, and Naruto and Kiba driving the solitary stags eastward, the scattered bucks would funnel together through the designated travel corridor before disbanding within the safety of the Nara grounds once more. Not an ideal strategy, but the best Shikamaru could do given the urgency and the quarantine zones. Always a dicey business working with the young stags during rutting season. The males risked goring each other, hormones and aggression riding high. But with Kiba, Akamaru, and Naruto dogging their steps, the deer were more likely to unite under the red flag of a predator threat. Strength in numbers. Soon as the bucks crossed into their new territory, Sakura and Sai would ensure all escape routes were sealed off. Temporary earth-style walls would reinforce the surrounding Nara enclosure until the deer settled back into their familiar habitant and hierarchy, their own territorial instincts reestablishing a natural frontier.

That takes care of the bucks…

All that was left was for his Team 10 buddies to usher the matriarchal herd south into the same enclosure via another route. Another risky feat. Though the females and their fawns tended to move independently of the stags and bucks, the majority of does were under the strict guard of a dominant male. The current stag presiding over the herd remained a formidable and long-standing King among his kind.

Rikumaru.

The majestic twelve-pointer and long-time sovereign of the Nara Forest.

Yeah, he's not gonna be happy about this…

Herd overlap was a strong possibility as the deer initially acclimatised, despite several hundred acres of enclosed grounds. Rutting season was annoying that way. Contending bucks became opportunistic, looking to land themselves some females, destabilising the social hierarchy. Hopefully Shino's insects would spook and irritate the bucks into dispersing to avoid a violent showdown with Rikumaru. Shikamaru just hoped Ino wouldn't need to mind-possess any troublesome—

His earbud sang a high note.

Flinching, Shikamaru switched the channel, resting back on his heels. "Yeah?"

"Success! We flushed His Majesty out," Ino updated, using her playful nickname for Rikumaru. "He's heading south with the rest of the does at this end. Yamato-sensei's travel corridors worked perfectly. They're all funnelling in. ETA around 30 minutes tops."

Knocking his head back, Shikamaru breathed a sigh of relief, nodding to himself. "Alright. That'll give Shino some time to scatter the bucks. Nice job guys. Ino, did you need to head hop?"

"Nope."

"Nice."

"You owe me."

"You got it."

"And you owe Yamato-sensei BIG time."

Didn't they all.

Packing up the scope and binoculars, Shikamaru made a mental note to ensure Yamato-sensei was adequately rewarded for his efforts. He deserved more than a meal and a handshake. More like a paid vacation. A sabbatical. Flat out retirement.

He'd have earned it.

According to Kakashi, if Konoha had an Akimichi-sized bucket for every gallon of blood, sweat, and manly tears Yamato had shed reforesting travel corridors for the deer, whilst simultaneously helping to reconstruct the village, then Gai-sensei would have to shed an oceanic proportion of vital fluids just to stay in the Youthful Lead, or else admit crushing defeat in the face of Yamato's superior Youthful constitution…which was both disturbing and groundbreaking. Too bad for Kakashi that Yamato hadn't usurped him as Gai's Ultimate Rival, though Shikamaru figured credit where credit was due: Yamato had made the Youthful Shortlist. Hard to believe there existed a shinobi with stamina more freakishly intense, or equal to, that of Konoha's bushy-browed, spandex-wearing, Noble Green Beast – Rock Lee notwithstanding.

Pein might've thought himself a dying God.

But Yamato was a living miracle, active in the world.

Thanks to him, the village would regenerate and recover – and thanks to Rikumaru, so would the deer that hadn't perished. Shikamaru paused mid pack-up, his gaze freezing in a blind stare on the tragic thought. So many of the deer had died in the wake of Pein's Shinra Tensei. Not because they'd been caught in the blast radius, but because they'd either trampled or gored each other when they'd stampeded away; been murdered by predators or poachers; or fallen prey to the CWD outbreak.

Fuck…

It hurt Shikamaru to think about it. And so, he stopped thinking about it pretty damn fast. And that wasn't cowardice – it was strategic compartmentalisation. There was just no advantage to thinking about what they'd lost when he needed to focus on preserving what had been saved, or still needed saving. While Rikumaru had survived the devastating attack, the great stag had sustained some serious injuries. Swift veterinary action had saved his life, but sheer beastly tenacity had secured his future and footing with what remained of the herd.

Shikamaru's dad had toasted the victory.

So had most of the clan.

While the Nara tried not to show favouritism with the deer, Shikamaru felt it as surely as his old man. Rikumaru was special to the clan in ways he struggled to express. The stag's animal sentience seemed freakishly human at times – or maybe beyond human, beyond nature. There was an intuition to Rikumaru's intelligence, a pre-meditated and empathic patterning to his psychology and behaviours that set him apart from the rest of his kind, his kingdom. Even his territorial governing bore signs of benevolence and justice. He exhibited a great spectrum of emotion with his harem and the fawns, which often extended to select Nara clansmen. Shikamaru was confident that under Rikumaru's reign, the deer, just like the forest, would rise and repopulate. So long as Rikumaru secured his seat as presiding King, the next generation would prosper.

Not like us…

Not if Danzō came into power.

And shit, that old bastard hungered for it. He was already positioning himself to rip the reins from Tsunade-sama's limp grasp. Sighing, Shikamaru continued packing his kit, reflecting grimly on the issue. The Godaime's condition hadn't changed. Medical stats showed no signs of her turning any immediate corners back towards consciousness. She was stable, sure. But that promised nothing. The world wouldn't wait on her – even though Sakura and Shizune did. They waited hand and foot, day and night. It had taken a whole lot of convincing, cajoling, and eventual Uzumaki harassment, just to persuade Sakura to leave the Hokage's side.

Wake up, Godaime.

A force of nature like Tsunade didn't belong in suspended animation. She'd always soldiered through the hard knocks. But Pein's knock had held the weight of a god behind it. Jiraiya had fallen beneath that blow, and now so had Tsunade. Two Sannin down. Shit. And in such short and shocking succession. Jiraiya lay rotting in the bedrock of an ocean grave, whilst Tsunade treaded the waters between life and death. Comatose. Clinging to life but unable to return to it. Curdling doubt in the hearts of those supporting her and those slated to replace her.

Shikamaru sighed, folding away the forest map into his flak-jacket.

Hokage. Not exactly a hot ticket role we're selling…

And they really needed to sell it. Fast. Civil unrest still festered, gangrenous beneath the surface of Konoha's reconstruction. A veneer of superficial order had been plastered like a cheap Band-Aid over the psychological wound Pein's violence had dealt them. Curing civilians of the fear sprung by this terrorist attack? Other than Danzō, who the hell wanted that insane level of responsibility right now?

Again, it's not about want.

No joke. Even if the numbers were. Amongst all the applicants his old man and the Council had considered, they'd narrowed it down to a grand total lineup of one.

Hatake Kakashi.

A reluctant nominee with zero Jōnin contenders and zero interest in the role itself. In that respect, Kakashi wasn't all that dissimilar to Tsunade before her appointment as Hokage. Though instead of shirking responsibility in gambling dens and dive bars, Kakashi had adopted a rather avoidant brand of 'stoic copism' which involved him having absolutely no political ground game and a wealth of 'get-me-outta-here' missions which always placed him strategically just outside the village. Close enough to be summoned back at a moment's notice, but far enough away to avoid the political haymaking and social meet-and-greets required of a running candidate as power changed hands.

He's running away.

Or so it seemed. Wasn't Shikamaru's place to judge. He could tragically relate to the 'screaming for the hills' kind of panic Kakashi must've been feeling, being shoehorned into an unwanted position of life-altering responsibility by outside forces. And all because Danzō couldn't contain his mercenary ambition long enough for the Council and the Jōnin to regroup and groom a more willing candidate.

Danzō wasn't stupid.

He'd moved fast.

Bastard.

Unpopular bastard – at least according those in the know, which were very few. The Council didn't chinwag about Danzō, and ex-ROOT weren't chatty either. Hard to get much information outta Sai. He'd go all tight-lipped and distant whenever asked, though Sakura had assured Shikamaru there was a more legitimate reason than misplaced loyalty or conflict of interest.

Something about a curse seal.

On his tongue.

Talk about a vow of silence.

Figures.

But even without the stats on Danzō, Shikamaru suspected a landslide win for Kakashi, given the Jōnin Commander had endorsed the recommendation. Most shinobi would support Nara Shikaku's choice. If they polled civilians, there was a high probability that popular vote would stack in Kakashi's favour. However, the Council could swing that vote. Danzō could outright rig it, if he greased the right feudal lackeys' palms or pulled some hidden power levers in the belly of the village, manipulating hearts and minds whilst campaigning from the shadows; undermining Tsunade, undermining her predecessor, and undermining Kakashi, promising a different and more dictatorial path to protect and preserve the village.

Shit. The village might actually go for that…

People were scared. They wanted strength. Security. Surety. Kakashi lacked the confidence, maybe even the commitment. Danzō had the edge because he wanted it. Wanted it bad. Unlike Kakashi, who just wanted to be left the hell alone – and was that unspoken request really all that unreasonable?

He'd died, for fuck's sake.

Out there, in the field, in the trenches, saving lives, defending Chōji during Pein's bloodbath, preserving the critical intelligence needed to protect the village. Kakashi had given his last broken breath while Danzō had given behind-the-lines silence. That sonofabitch had sat back in the shadows and watched it all go wrong, doing a whole lot of nothing to help turn the tide…as far as Shikamaru knew. That was always the problem with ROOT – and honestly, the ANBU too – you just never knew what the hell those black-ops bastards were up to. That underhandedness and uncertainty didn't inspire confidence in Danzō's iron rule either.

It was an uneasy tossup.

Kakashi's reluctance.

Danzō's secrecy.

Neither were inspiring qualities in would-be leaders. But when it came to tipping the scales in all that dangerous uncertainty? There was one thing of which Shikamaru had absolutely no doubt.

Kakashi had died for the village.

And he'd do it again, in a heartbeat.

Another thought that hurt. Physically hurt. And not just because Asuma's loss loomed in the shadow of that sacrifice. At the time when Shikamaru had learned of Kakashi's death, the gut-sick shock had blindsided his brain and seized his heart in a spasm of cold dread. Not just for himself. Not just for the village. But for—

"Naruto," he sighed aloud.

No sooner had Shikamaru breathed the name than Neji's voice spilled softly into his right ear, calling him back to the present, the Hyūga's deep velvet tones drifting out in a quiet relay, as if mindful of eavesdroppers.

"Shikamaru. It seems your suspicions were warranted."

"Tell me."

"Naruto's tenketsu looks enflamed. He's fatigued and running a low-grade fever. He clearly hasn't recovered from the Kyūbi's partial transformation whilst battling Pein. I imagine his new-found Sage mode abilities will be creating some interference as well. It'll take time for his body to acclimatise."

Folding his legs, Shikamaru sank back in confusion, staring at the roof of the hunting blind as he parsed that. "Yeah, okay…makes sense."

"What is it?"

"I get the physical setback…but his disposition…it's…I don't know, Neji, even when he's been laid out in the hospital in the past, he's usually more…" Shikamaru searched for the word, reaching blindly. "Resilient."

Neji didn't answer immediately, but when he did, his voice held a coldness that chilled the distance between them. "That's a cruel thing to say, Shikamaru."

Shikamaru froze at that, his head coming up sharply. Like he'd taken a slap to the face. It took him a long second to respond, mostly because he hadn't realised how much of an asshole comment he'd just made until Neji had pointed it out.

"I didn't mean it like that, Neji."

"No? How did you mean it?"

Shikamaru scowled at nothing. "Not the way you're accusing me of meaning it, that's for sure."

"I'm not accusing you," Neji said, the coldness melting off into cool logic. "Just bringing your awareness back to the fact that what he went through – what he's always going through with the Kyūbi – is something that none of us can fully comprehend. Although…I'd have thought that you might understand at least some small measure of his struggle, given your own past."

That stung.

No, it stabbed.

But Shikamaru didn't bleed anger.

The words cut the scowl on his face into a pained grimace, tuning him in to a far more empathic frequency, one which he tended to drown out whenever he felt that emotional interference messing with his head…with his heart. Not just because he needed to stay impartial, but because, along with all the other panicky signals firing off inside him in the aftermath of Pein's attack, it still scared the hell out of him to stand so close to the memory of his own Darkness.

So close to what that Darkness had almost cost him…

So close to who that Darkness had almost cost him…

I almost lost Neji…almost lost myself too…

But Naruto hadn't lost himself. Even when he'd thought he'd lost his home. Lost Kakashi, Hinata, and so many others. Even at the brink of being totally consumed by the Kyūbi's rage, totally transformed, and overpowered by it, he'd found – no, fought – his way back. Always. Time and time again. Always bouncing back. Always putting on a brave face. Baring his bloody teeth and grinning through the pain, even when he was breaking.

Fuck…

Naruto had more than resilience. More than strength. What that grinning, goofy, gutsy bastard had in his heart, Shikamaru didn't even have words for. Or if he did, those words didn't belong in his treacherous mouth right now. The closest he'd ever come to describing the goodness, the light, the ineffable something inside of Naruto, was when he'd spoken about it to his dad shortly after Jiraiya-sama had died.

"I went to lecture Naruto, to tell him not to be all depressed. It was a drag, but I couldn't help myself. That kid's got something that no one else has…"

His father had asked him what that something was and Shikamaru couldn't answer. Didn't have the right words that wouldn't sound too soft on his sharp tongue. All he could reply was that Naruto was going to become someone critical for the village someday. He'd been so sure of it. Was still, so damned sure of it.

Which is why when Naruto was off, everything was off.

Yeah, including me…

Only a select few people had that effect on Shikamaru. Got him worried enough to do a craptacular job of exhibiting concern. He'd done the same thing with Neji a couple of days back, laying into the Hyūga because Shikamaru couldn't handle the fear burning through him like a fever. He'd come off sounding like an inconsiderate asshole because it was easier than sounding afraid – and he'd done the same damn thing again just now, however unintentional, however unaware.

Shikamaru cringed inwardly.

Well done, genius…

He should've been aware. Had made the very painful and decisive choice to always be aware – of himself, of what was going on inside him in the dark corners. Because the last time he'd run away from it, avoided it, attacked it back into its lockbox, it had almost killed him. And now there was a bitter aftertaste from the negligence of his thoughtless throwaway comment…

No excuse.

Naruto lived consciously with his demon. Very much aware of what burned inside him and the damage it could do, would do, if it ever overpowered him. Shikamaru's demon, however, had crawled in the shadows of his psyche, half-glimpsed in nightmares, always hidden in the waking hours…until it wasn't. It'd been symbiotic in its misguided purpose of shielding him from trauma, becoming so subconsciously ingrained within him that he'd failed to realise the power of its possession over him until it'd almost been too late.

The Kyūbi wasn't that subtle.

It wasn't angling for anyone else's survival or sanity. That nine tailed demon didn't want to protect Naruto. It wanted to destroy him.

Destroy everything.

Kurayami, or 'The Darkness', as Shikamaru had called it, had wanted to destroy Shuken – that psychopathic Mad Scientist piece of shit. And who could blame him? Ultimately, Kurayami had wanted to protect Shikamaru. And okay, sure, Kurayami had done it in a really fucked-up and misguided way. The alter had tried to wrest control away, hijack Shikamaru's body, and take it for a bloody ride whilst actioning the whole revenge plot drama. But the truth was…that alter, that Darkness, was still HIM. Kurayami hadn't been some alien intruder in Shikamaru's mind; he'd been a splintered piece of Shikamaru's fractured psyche. An exiled, fragmented, dissociated part of him; also an unquestionably messed-up, damaged, traumatised, homicidal part of him – hence the terror and the hurt the memories inspired – but still…Kurayami hadn't been a foreign entity, or even an enemy. He hadn't meant to almost kill everyone. He just didn't want anyone or anything getting in his way.

Cold comfort.

For sure. Not a great excuse. But even at his worst, Kurayami sure as shit hadn't been an ancient amped-up bijū trying to twist Shikamaru into an instrument of mindless chaos in order to exact revenge on humanity as a whole just to watch the world burn.

Naruto lives with that struggle. Every. Damn. Day.

Who the fuck was Shikamaru to question Naruto's resilience?

Neji had pulled his verbal punch. He could've hit harder. Not that he needed to. The guilt would do that just fine. In fact, Neji's silence emanated way more reproach than anything else he might've added. Shikamaru could feel those white-eyes boring into him across the distance. And what the Byakugan didn't see, Neji would intuit.

Duly chastened, Shikamaru let the silence whip his conscience into a sick pulp for a full minute. And then he communicated everything he felt too gutted to say – including sorry – by speaking just three words. "I hear you, Neji."

"You usually do."

Shikamaru closed his eyes, grateful, forgiven, wanting to say more. His breath hitched, but Neji read him before he could open his mouth again.

"I have him in my sights, Shikamaru. And I'll keep an eye on him."

"Good to know."

"Try not to worry."

"I'm not—"

Neji snorted. "You only ever say cruel thoughtless things about people you care for when you're worried about them, Shikamaru…or worried for them."

True. Though Neji didn't have to sound so goddamned smug about it. A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. "Yeah, okay, can we move on now?"

"Already ahead of you. Literally, that is. You might want to pick up the pace."

"Slave-driving sadist."

"Strategic investor. Putting you through your paces offers an excellent return on investment of my time and energy, Shikamaru."

Shikamaru laughed softly, crabbing sideways to exit the blind. "Damn, Hyūga. Flirting on the job? Not professional."

"I'm on a break. That's how far behind you are."

Throwing up his hands in mock exasperation, Shikamaru shuffled around on his knees, flicked up his rain-slicking hood, and resumed his dismantling of the hunting blind, pulling the stakes and collapsing the already crooked poles, almost stabbing himself in the gut when his dead legs refused to cooperate the moment he tried to stand.

Neji's quiet scoff tickled his ear.

Shikamaru stilled with embarrassment and gave the forest a flat stare. "Eyes on our knucklehead, Hyūga."

"Just making sure you're good to go."

"About as good as it gets with no feeling from the waist down."

"We'll have to remedy that later."

Heat fluttered in Shikamaru's lower belly, threatening to travel south and ignite more dangerous regions. Clearing his throat, he crouched to fold up the canvas, bundling the blind into the carrying case. "I'm guessing Tenten is about ten miles outta earshot right now for you to be talking like this."

Neji's black-velvet chuckle stroked through Shikamaru like a full-body caress, chasing hot ripples across his skin. Sucking a breath, he screwed his eyes shut, groaning in frustration. "Would you stop?" he half-pleaded, half-growled. "I really don't wanna rock up at the next checkpoint looking like I get off on hard work."

"Ah, but that depends on the hard work now, doesn't it, Shikamaru?"

"I'm cutting you off, Neji."

"Coward."

Smirking, Shikamaru slung the carrying case over his shoulder, balancing the weight as he braced to rise, muttering, "I'll remember this, you bastard."

Neji laughed, a rare sound.

Shikamaru stilled all over, his breath catching before he forced himself to stand, savouring the way that laugh melted through him, bringing as much peace as it did pleasure, transmuting arousal into a prominent ache behind his ribs.

A silent moment held between them. Empty of words but filled with the awareness of the unspoken sentiment that ran from both ends of the line.

Shikamaru gave a small and rueful smile, knowing Neji would see it. "Every god damn time, Hyūga."

Another laugh. Breathy. Softer. So much softer it almost sounded sad.

"Me too, Nara," Neji returned quietly, and then he was gone.

Shikamaru let out a slow breath.

Warmth beat a steady cadence through his blood, lingering even as the breeze ruffled his hood and plucked at his cloak, the scent of damp loam filling his nose. The forest dripped and shivered around him. Shaking off his pleasant brain-dead stupor, Shikamaru tipped his head back into the rain and let the drizzle mist his face for a few seconds, cooling off the embers still burning inside him.

Trust Neji to rattle him in the right way at the wrong time.

But getting Shikamaru worked up during a mission? On purpose? That was new. And sneaky. A short laugh puffed out of Shikamaru, misting the air. This playful and less controlled side of Neji never failed to surprise, enflame, and totally stupefy the shadow-nin. In the best of ways.

Yeah, and the most troublesome…

Neji could generate sexual tension between them like a god-damned thunderhead, all that raw chemical electricity gathering white-hot behind his pale cloud eyes, rolling out words in that low black rumble which stirred shorthairs and vaporised every working braincell in Shikamaru's skull faster than a lightning strike.

Incendiary, during downtime.

Infuriating, during a mission.

Bastard.

But damn him for a liar, Shikamaru couldn't deny how deeply it affected him; being shocked, ambushed, and arguably wrecked, by this spontaneous, relaxed, and extremely unpredictable version of the allegedly stone-cold Hyūga Neji. For Shikamaru, a great deal of the impact, and an enormous amount of the pleasure, came from knowing he was the only person who got to experience Neji this way – even if it was at his own expense, and risked severe public embarrassment in situations where he needed to not be delayed on account of a stubborn hard on.

Gritting his teeth, he refused to look down and acknowledge it.

Go away.

Away it did not go.

Traitor.

Willing his body to settle the hell down, Shikamaru tipped his face back down and swiped the rainwater from his lashes, resigning himself to a memory bank of disturbing images to kill his arousal and get the job done.

He almost jumped out his skin when the radio crackled sharply at his ear.

"Yeah?"

He waited.

Nothing.

Static.

The wind picked up, filling his left ear, distorting the odd sounds crackling through the bud tucked into his right. Frowning slightly, he ducked his chin to his shoulder to kill some of the ambient noise and reached for his mic.

"Hey, someone just call in? Signal's weak. Say again?"

No answer but static.

Scratchy, loud, little nails in his head…

An abrupt throb started up at the base of his skull…

Began to travel…

Working his jaw, Shikamaru blinked hard, clenching his eyes shut then opening them wide, bunching and loosening the muscles of his face to ease the tightness pulling at his scalp and temples. The last thing he needed right now was a hunger headache. Maybe the 'no food' rule had been a little extreme.

At least the pain killed the tent in his damn pants.

Static popped in his ear…

Gave way to a high tinnitus ringing…

The fuck?

He tapped his mic. "Hey, anyone read me?"

If anyone did, they didn't answer.

Brows pulling together slowly, Shikamaru waited, cycled through the channels, then switched to the team line and tried again. "Shikamaru. Radio check. All teams respond."

No response.

Weird.

He tried all the private channels, repeating the request to the same effect each time.

Okay. Seriously weird.

Had his radio just died mid-mission?

Such a drag…

Or maybe not. At least he'd have a legitimate excuse for his delay. Even so, he needed to reach the checkpoint before the acceptable window of 'not my fault' closed. He'd have to haul tail. Through fog. On wet ground. Running on his healed leg for the first time since it'd snapped like a twig. What a fantastic opportunity to break it again.

The headache punched upwards and out, knuckling into his eye sockets…

The corners of his vision blackened a little…

And the earbud kept popping away like sizzling rind…

Ugh. Don't think about food.

Shrugging the hunting cargo into a better position along his tortured spine, Shikamaru ignored the referred pain forking through his arms, hooked his thumb into the strap of the carrying case and turned on his heel. Time to head out. Squinting through the mist to orient himself, he gauged direction and checked his watch, blinking back spots from his vision before he stepped—

A broken transmission cracked through the earbud: "You liv—on and t—ake the reins, Shi—k—maru…"

Shikamaru stopped cold, eyes widening on the voice. "Dad?"

His dad sounded…wrong. No…not just that. The words sounded wrong.

Felt wrong.

Felt…familiar.

The pain tearing through Shikamaru's spine turned cold and sharp, pulling a wince from him. Some part of him registered a faraway bleeping down the line.

Beep, beep, beep…

Blinking fast, he raised his hand to his right ear. "Dad?" he called, confusion twisting his expression, annoyance rising to cover the alarm knifing through his chest. "What reins, old man? Live on? What the hell's that mean? I don't get what you're say—"

"The only fac—time I spent wi—th you as your fath—er was…wh—n we played Sho—gi."

Shikamaru's eyes flashed wide, the blackness around his vision crowding closer…

What the hell was that in his father's voice?

This wasn't…

Beep. Beep. Beep.

This couldn't…

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The colour drained from Shikamaru's face, along with all traces of annoyance from his voice, his throat tightening as he croaked out a rushed and shaken, "Dad…?"

"I hav—n't given you a thi—ng…"

His father's voice was so soft in his ear. So, so soft. So, so wrong.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Breathing in fast, rattled sips, Shikamaru strained to hear more than ringing and beeping and static, the pain in his head throbbing fast as his heart. "Dad…? Dad!"

Beep. Beep. Bee—"GET THE MEDICAL TEAM!" Naruto's voice exploded in Shikamaru's ear –"HURRY!" – or was it in his mind?

Medical team?

Shikamaru jerked his head up and twisted around so fast the cargo slid from his shoulder. He let it fall. Shouted down the mic, vision tunnelling in panic, weaving a little on his feet. "Naruto!? What the hell? Who's hurt? Who's—"

"THERE'S A CRITICAL INJURY!" Naruto screamed hoarsely – beep, beep, bee—"HURRY!"

Snarling, Shikamaru opened his mouth to shout back but—

"Shikamaru stop talking right now!" said Sakura, the urgency in her voice jolting him, paralysing him. "I'm not going to let you die!"

"Die?" Shikamaru mouthed, staring in blank confusion as he tried to process that – beep, beep, beep – panic squeezing his brain before he gripped his mic and blurted roughly, "WHO'S HURT, DAMMIT? Saku—"

"—Naruto," she gurgled the name, a wet, teary sound. "No, everybody, needs you!"

Who the fuck was she talking to? Him? Naruto? Who the hell was hurt? Shikamaru felt his breaths escalating. He needed to stop. Needed to think. Needed—Dad, dad, dad, cried a small, panicked voice in the back of his mind – Beep. Beep. Beep – but he shook his head against the mess of bleeding sounds and turned a blind circle with eyes squeezed shut, trying to organise his thoughts as the voices overlapped.

He switched channels, securing his direct line to Neji and—

"What the hell just happened!" said Naruto.

Shikamaru's eyes shot open and he latched onto the mic, speaking fast, "That's what I keep asking! What the hell is goin—"

"—No not that," Naruto talked over him.

Shit, was his mic really dead?

Was one of his people dead?

"No not what, Naruto?!" Shikamaru roared, "Sakura? Neji? SOMEONE TALK TO—"

"—I'm asking what happened to Shikaku and Inoichi!" Naruto's voice shook.

It shook through everything.

Shikamaru did not move.

Did not breathe.

His brain went as dead as the breath in his throat. He couldn't think. Couldn't – beep, beep, beep – hold a thought – Dad. Dad. Dad – and just stood there, stricken by the words but the words kept coming like—

A voice snarled, "What are you doing, Chōji!"

That was…

Shikamaru's legs almost folded.

He bent over instead, gripped his thighs, and choked out a noise that almost sounded like a name. An impossible name because—

"You don't need to hold back," Asuma said. "I'm already dead. TAKE ME DOWN!"

Shikamaru screamed. A rough, scared sound. He tore the bud from his ear and hurled it with such force he staggered, hands flying to his head to – beep, beep, beep – keep his shattered thoughts from flying in all directions. Colours flooded behind his clenched eyes, fast, chemical, kaleidoscopic—Genjutsu, his brain scrambled out – beep, beep, beep – God, this had to be a genjutsu.

He slapped his hands together in a seal. "RELEASE!"

Something broke…

It wasn't a genjutsu.

New voices smashed into his skull...

"You live on…(MEDIC!)"

...and those voices flooded over and into the already screaming echoes of—

"THERE'S A CRITICAL INJURY (HE'S CODING!)"

An overwhelming intercom – "Shikamaru stop talking right now! (Administer epinephrine!)" – only it wasn't radio inference and – "I'm not going to let you die! (Ready the pads!)"– it wasn't – "TAKE ME DOWN! (CLEAR FOR DEFIB!)" – real.

Was it?

The screaming voices rose and rose and rose and…

("CLEAR!")

Bright hot light blew it all away into blinding, searing, ringing, white.

Naruto's voice said from a million miles away, "Shikamaru."

Shikamaru blinked and it was dark.

He didn't know where he was. Or if he was anywhere at all. Panting, shuddering, he stood on shaky legs, knees bent, fingers still clasped in the 'release' seal, fear-sweat dripping down his face, his neck, his spine.

W-where?

He sucked air and tasted earth, smelled familiar resin and a hint of distant rain – and from somewhere further off, he caught the faint acrid sting of smoke.

He heard very little.

Saw even less.

A grey soupy mist filled his swimming vision, then slowly, little by little, that mist began to disperse, just enough for dusky light, purple and bruised, to penetrate the fog. He tried to calm his breathing, heart jackhammering in his chest, picking out details through wide searching eyes, scanning his immediate surroundings as far the mists permitted him to see.

Silhouettes resolved themselves…

Tall…

Dark…

Black skeleton bones of a charred treeline, rows upon rows of burnt branches reaching skyward in rigor stiffness, gnarled woody fingers tangled up together in a twisted prayer, a bleak cremation.

Is this…?

This couldn't be the Nara Forest.

Frowning, Shikamaru tried to glance to either side but his vision only tunnelled forwards. No peripheral sight, blinkering his stare. He tried again and this time turned his head fully. Looked left and right and saw only fog. Above him, darkness. Below him, shadows. Looked dead ahead and saw the singed and smoking treeline still standing there, backlit from within, a patchwork of thorny carbonised trunks.

Light beyond the treeline seemed to beckon.

Not in a good way. Not in the way that light at the end of dark tunnels and scary places was supposed to beckon. There was nothing comforting about this light. Nothing warm, or welcoming. It wasn't a beacon. It called the way that darkness called. And that felt…

Felt…

…familiar.

As if summoned to go ahead of him, the mist began to drift towards that light, pulled by a breeze Shikamaru couldn't feel, spilling between those ruined trees like a ghost-breath sucked back into the forest.

Pulling in a breath of his own, he moved to follow, shaky as a fawn.

The absence of sound owned him.

He spoke to prove he could hear. "This isn't real."

He wasn't deaf. But the world was on mute. If this was even the world. It was foreign-familiar in the way dreamscapes often were.

Am I dreaming?

His footsteps made no sound. Like travelling through a vacuum…maybe through time. He crossed the forest border, felt the catch and drag of branches, ashes raining down instead of leaves, wind-tossed cinders. Squinting to protect his eyes, he raised a forearm and pushed through, feeling the crunch of coal-black ruin underfoot. Not hearing it, only feeling it. And it felt like it didn't belong. Felt too unyielding. Not like forest terrain, even after burning.

Okay, so the genjutsu didn't release…

It helped to believe that. That was the only thing that fit right in his head. Tension coiled through him, tightening muscles. He moved like a stiff old man, struggling the last few steps. He practically threw himself the rest of the way.

Broke through the treeline.

Came out on the other side of that burnt-out forest and…

Shikamaru's eyes widened on a bombsite.

Wreckage. Everywhere. Huge masonry chunks. Smouldering, orange-red and black, the air shimmering in a heat haze he couldn't feel. He went cold all over, but everything was burning, smoking, bathed in the dying glow of whatever fire had ripped through this place…

What place?

There was no facility like this in the Nara Forest. He glanced behind, but the trees were gone. Only darkness and fog. He turned back to the blistering ruins and inched forwards, picking out a path through the debris, taking in the total annihilation of what must've been one hell of a large building. Impossible to gauge its structure, only it's size. The collapsed walls might've been stone or cement, piles of rubble and rebar strewn about, the warped steel glowing white-hot in places.

What a mess.

One might've assumed a Fire Style attack, but the cratered ground suggested a bomb. There was no roof or elevated structures left to topple or fall, so much had been flattened and obliterated. Stepping carefully, Shikamaru slitted his gaze against the drift of embers, feeling them sweep across his face, leaving grey-white smudges. It didn't burn. The cinders felt cold as snowflakes. It made about as much sense as the total lack of sound. No sizzling or crackling, no pop of wood or groan of rending metal.

Just…eerie silence.

Snorting dust from his nose, he coughed into the crook of his arm, tried to breathe and almost gagged. Underlying the thick mortar taste was the nauseating stink of burnt flesh, cooked meat, the metallic tinge of…blood.

Heart lurching into his throat, Shikamaru edged sideways.

His foot nudged something that almost turned his damn ankle.

Cursing, he stepped over it and glanced down to spot an odd mechanical device which looked like a giant helmet with protruding wires and antenna, its cracked curvature burnished by the fire-glow.

Telepathy Communication Device?

Looked like something old man Inoichi probably used at T&I to enhance his jutsu abilities and broadcast messages across vast distances. Scorch marks streaked across the helmet, black and…bloody.

Shikamaru stared…and stared…

A strange feeling congealed inside him.

In his chest.

In his gut.

That foreign-familiar sensation that had his heart stuttering out a sharp irregular beat, a panicked rapport which hinted at some subconscious awareness he couldn't interpret. Couldn't place. Couldn't attach to anything outside this moment.

Did the Intelligence Division get hit?

By what?

And when?

Swallowing thickly, Shikamaru spat the grit and dust from his bone-dry mouth, crouched down and extended a wary hand, expecting to feel heat radiating from the device. Nothing. He tapped the helmet. It felt cold to the touch – like everything else burning around him in this silent smouldering hellhole. Cupping his palms about the large helmet he tilted his wrists by degrees, holding his breath against the bile rising in his throat as he tipped the cracked hood…saw the boiled blood…the crispy flesh…the crinkled blond strands sticking to the—

A sudden shout, hoarse and jarring, made him jump.

Naruto!?

Shikamaru dropped the helmet, shot to his feet, and twisted around. Saw only darkness. Just like the forest, the burning path he'd navigated through the rubble was gone. As if every step forward erased the ground behind. Had the shout even come from that direction?

What the HELL is going on?

Behind him, he heard a voice say, "Didn't you say you wouldn't let any of your comrades die?"

Shikamaru whirled, a kunai he didn't remember having spinning over his knuckles and slapping into his palm in a reverse grip. His blade cut air. There was no one there. Breathing hard, he glared wide-eyed, the air firing in and out his flaring nose, brown eyes fixed on the path ahead.

Between two collapsed chunks of wood and stone, stacked against each other in a precarious triangle, a crawlspace glowed with light, a doorway to another room in this mental madhouse…

Genjutsu, he reminded.

He tried the release seal again.

Nothing.

Shit.

The fog and smoke drifted through the thin crawlspace passageway, spilling beyond the hellscape. Anywhere else was better than here. He couldn't go back, he could only advance. Dragging his feet forwards, Shikamaru slipped the kunai away. He headed for the makeshift tunnel, needing to escape this ruin he couldn't recognise, even if some part of it felt vaguely remembered, or reconstructed, belonging to some terrible memory that felt very scary and very real.

None of this is real. You've got your ass landed in a genjutsu.

He clung to this line of reasoning with both hands. A mental life raft in a sea of "get me the hell outta here." Tucking his body low, he ducked into the tight crawlspace, squeezed through the slim passageway like a chimp in a vent, following the smoke, following the light, before he crawled the last few paces and shuffled out into a…

Wasteland.

No sun, no moon, no way to tell what time of day or night. The sky was one endless stretch of murky sea, a bank of churning clouds that held unnatural colours, greenish grey and gangrene black, dark necrotic hues, sickly and surreal.

Nothing lived under that sky.

Nothing but miles of desolate rock, hard and cracked, pockmarked like the face of an alien moon, the far side of some hostile planet like a scene straight out of an apocalyptic comic. Bewildered, Shikamaru stood rooted in this Badlands tableau, body drawn in rigid lines, his gaze flickering with the confused light of a thousand camera flashes, taking it all in, trying to make sense of what the hell he was seeing…

…remembering?

Or maybe what he was feeling…

Familiar-foreign, familiar-foreign, his mind pushed and pulled between the two opposite charges, repelling him whenever he got too close to an answer.

I…know this place…?

Fog gathered in pockets, shredding and drifting, and for the first time he could hear. Not much, just a void-like breath across dark stone and flat mesas, a canyon breeze, like the exhale of a god, without beginning or end. Other than this one unbroken sound, the noiseless terrain felt haunted, the kind of quiet reserved for graveyards.

Shikamaru's breath fogged.

It joined the gathering mists, seemed to blend into a spectral pall, spreading, obscuring even as it parted to reveal – roots? Giant, bloated, aerial roots. Colossal, jungle-like things. Surging their great wooden cables through the earth, humming as if imbued with a live current.

Chakra?

Insane. Unnatural. And there and gone, vanishing in and out of the fog.

Shikamaru let out a rattled, "Not. Real."

The conviction wobbled, threatened to burst like the sweat from his pores. He took a few meandering steps forward, determined to figure out how the hell to dispel the illusion. If he could just find higher ground, or a still-point, a pattern to the shifting landscapes.

Instinct tightened inside him.

His mind went abruptly still.

So did his body.

The sense of being watched crawled across the back of his neck.

He knew if he turned, he'd see nothing but fog and darkness. That, at least, remained predictable. Staring straight ahead, to where the haze parted in intermittent drifts, he held his breath and stretched his other senses, locked in such total stillness his chest burned. He waited. Listening out for any signs of another presence, feeling his lungs throb for air.

Two seconds before he could steal a breath, a voice rang out, sharp and clear, cutting through the ambient hum. "You said 'I'll never let my comrades die'. Those were your words. Now, look around you and try to say them again…"

Jolting, Shikamaru quarter-turned, dark eyes snapping every which way, the air leaving him in an angry rush. "All this hide-and-seek bullshit is really starting to piss me off," he snarled, though a quiver of unease shook through his words. "Show yourself!"

Nothing emerged from the fog to either side. However, the mists directly ahead curled back their spectral tongues, a vortex of pale twisting threads that tangled and pulled apart, some sick version of a curtain toss, revealing a segment of pitted earth filled with thorns; thick wooden shrapnel sticking up from the skewered ground, stakes upon stakes driven deep into soil that crunched and cracked beneath Shikamaru's hesitant steps. He'd only made it a couple of strides before he stopped cold, feet digging in hard.

There, kneeling in the grove of giant stakes was—

"Naruto?" Shikamaru breathed in equal parts relief and confusion, his brows pulling together over his narrowed eyes. Like he didn't trust what he was seeing. Like he didn't want to.

No shit. This isn't real.

Naruto knelt with his back to Shikamaru, his body bent double over something – no, someone. A figure, unmoving, grasped partially in his arms. Shikamaru couldn't determine who it was. The angle was bad, the fog concealing as much as it revealed. But he could see Naruto. Every tortured line of him. Cradling the figure in his arms, Naruto barely moved, but for the quiver running along his hunched shoulders, a semi-rocking motion, his blond spikes shivering, like he was chilled…or…wracked with…

The fog spilled to one side…

The earth around him was stained red and white…

Blood and feathers…

Shikamaru's heart stalled. Stopped. Started. Squeezed so hard in his heaving chest he couldn't shake the grip of knowing even though he had no fucking clue why everything inside him was on the verge of flying apart when nothing was making any goddamned sense.

"Naruto," he rasped again, forcing the name past the stricture in his closing throat, words catching and chafing halfway out his mouth. "What…who…?"

This isn't real.

Shikamaru had almost convinced himself this was true.

Until Naruto turned.

Without a word, without releasing or revealing who he held, Naruto's head swivelled in a lost drift, his red-rimmed eyes tracking up in slow-time. When their gazes hit, he did not look at Shikamaru. He looked through him. Eyes glazed and tear-washed, like cracking fogged-up glass. There wasn't any pain on his face. There was nothing. His expression scratched-out into blank shock despite the tears spilling from his eyes.

Stricken, Shikamaru stared back, some part of his psyche teetering on the verge of run, run, run, whilst the rest of him froze as surely as if one of those wooden stakes had driven right the way through him from head to heel, nailing him in place.

Naruto continued to look at him, eyes wide and unfocused. And then, slowly, one aching second at a time, his glazed look cleared, glistened, grew wider still.

"S-Shikamaru?" he whispered in a voice thick with fear and confusion. And then, in a voice layered with so much pain, with so much…apology. "It's…my fault…"

A sharp CRACK.

The ground split between them…

Jolting, Shikamaru's gaze dropped to the ruined earth…dropped to the feathers that shook and shivered but could not blow away, plastered to the dirt by the blood…so much blood…red on white…red on black…soaking into the hard dark soil, dripping into the zigzag crack…

Wait.

Dripping?

Drip, drip, drip…

Stunned, Shikamaru's gaze snapped back up and he flinched in horror. "Naruto, y-your arm…"

Naruto stood close now, bleeding out, his right elbow a dripping stump, his face twisted in a rictus of agony. But not for himself. Not even for the body he'd been holding. His gaze was fixed on Shikamaru – and not on the shadow-nin's face.

"Shikamaru…" Naruto choked out, the fear rising in his eyes, in his voice, as if he hadn't heard Shikamaru speak the exact same words. "Y-your arm…"

Confused, Shikamaru tried to answer. Instead, despite everything inside him screaming at him not to, he looked down at his left arm – and saw not an arm, not a hand, but a fucking abomination. A swollen, black-furred, mutant-limb; a gross impossible thing, stretching from the elbow down into a hand that was more paw than palm, animal-clawed fingers hanging at his side, the obsidian nails sharp as scalpels.

He blinked, head cocked to one side, not comprehending…

Not understanding.

Until he did.

Shikamaru actually felt his mind fracture, sanity splintering off into terror and panic.

This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real.

His legs buckled and he dropped to his knees.

Naruto dropped beside him in total synch, as if caught in a shadow-possession, his knees cracking down hard. His severed stump swung heavy, dripping blood, whilst Shikamaru's nightmare arm twitched and jittered in a palsy shake, his eyes flaring wider, glued in abject terror to his corrupted limb.

This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real.

Naruto made a choked sound, his throat squelching around a knot of tears.

Lost in a kind of catatonic stupor, Shikamaru retained just enough lucidity to lift his pounding head. He looked up. Wished to gods he hadn't. Fear bled to panic in Naruto's wide wet eyes. But those eyes weren't trained on Shikamaru. They stared at something beyond the shadow-nin. Something behind him. And above him. Looming. Breathing. Hot, rancid, copper.

The hairs on Shikamaru's nape stood on end.

He did not want to turn.

He did not want to look.

But he was no longer in control of himself, the last threads of his sanity looping over and over in a broken chant, the thoughts banding like a tourniquet around his broken brain to staunch the mental bleeding.

This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't—

Only it was.

Shikamaru turned his head. Saw what Naruto saw. And had no air to scream.

"Hey, Kid. Miss me?"

Something dropped away.

Shikamaru's shock.

His sanity.

A very large chunk of his soul.

Paralysed, Shikamaru gazed into the giant yellow eyes and black sclera, the slitted pupils flickering in sulphur orbs that burned with a cold ruthless sentience that was empty of mercy yet completely free of madness – which was worse, so much worse than being crazy. There was no humanity in those eyes, just feral cunning intelligence, as sharp and savage as the slow vulpine smile that stretched its rows of bone-white fangs into a rictus grin as wide and wretched as the wasteland itself.

Shikamaru gazed into The Darkness.

And The Darkness gazed into him.

He saw himself in those eyes and he saw himself through them. There was nothing between them. Or beyond them. Just nine black tails twisting and twining around him like shadow tendrils. Nine black tails and no separation.

No split.

No self.

No salvation.

Naruto yelled, and yelled, and yelled his name.

Shikamaru did not answer, but his body did. He turned and The Darkness turned with him. He faced the Jinchūriki housing nine-tailed fire, narrowed his yellow eyes against the solar warmth burning in his domain of lightless nine-tailed shadow, opened his jaws to speak, and the cry that ripped from his chest and burst from behind his pointed teeth was no human roar, but a black animal howl.

The howl had teeth.

So sharp.

So savage.

So horribly fast.

They tore into Naruto…and tore out of him.

Tore out the light from his too-blue eyes…

Tore out the flesh of his hot and tender throat…

They tore, and they tore, and they dyed the thirsty wasteland so shiny, so wet, and so beautifully RED.

…so red…

(beep)…

…so black…

(beep)…

…so WHITE.

The white doused the black, struck a lighter's holy flame – Asuma – and set The Darkness on fire – hot electric fire – until finally, on the far side of that nightmarish dream, as red and wrong as the Tsukuyomi Moon, Shikamaru slid sideways off the edges of that red, red, world and back into the realm of the living and the wakeful.

He did not slide quietly.

He did not wake well.

He was torn back to flailing, gasping, consciousness by a pain in his heart and an ache in his chest that had nothing to do with the defibrillation shocks he'd taken.

No, Nara Shikamaru did not wake well.

He woke with a scream on his lips.

A terror in his soul.

And halfway across the village, ripped from the clutches of the same red dream, so did Uzumaki Naruto.

---

Naruto screamed himself awake.

Toppling sideways onto the floor on which he'd fallen asleep whilst meditating, his hand flew to his gasping throat, fingers digging into his neck to staunch a geyser of blood that wasn't there.

Inside him, Kurama barked a startled, "Naruto!"

Naruto didn't respond.

Through a haze of panic and tears, his mouth worked soundlessly to draw air into his heaving lungs, his eyes blown wide and seeing nothing, the vestiges of the nightmare still wrapped around him like giant black thorns, no…giant black tails…nine giant black tails…

He couldn't hold that thought.

It bled into red-stained feathers and blood-stained fangs.

Agony twisted inside his chest.

His heart hurt.

He didn't have words for this pain. On some level, way, way down where only this kind of pain could ever live, he knew it wasn't physical – and maybe not even his. Not all of it. And yet. He dropped his hand, clutched at his sweat-soaked orange vest, wringing the fabric into a knot, and began pulling, pulling, pulling, legs kicking in a violent spasm, like he was trying to swim through the panic and resurface.

He couldn't.

Names wrapped their memories around his soul. Dragged him down like a deadweight into the depths of those dark smoking places – tailed beast bombs and burning rubble – those vast lightless places – blood-stained feathers on broken ground, a body impaled like a thorn-bird – those red, red, places.

Inoichi-shishō.

Shikaku-shishō.

…Neji.

Kurama slammed him with a big chakra bitchslap.

The energy blistered through Naruto's system in a heatwave, lighting up the scary places, bursting through the blood-mist in his head. It thrust him from the pain just long enough to get his legs beneath him, stagger towards the bathroom, throw the light switch, drop to his knees, and hurl his twisting guts out into the pale toilet bowl.

Everything came up.

The ramen.

The bile.

The terror.

Tears burned out of him like acid, searing past his clenched eyelids, scoring down his whiskered cheeks and the trembling lines of his chin as he gagged, and convulsed, and pleaded, and held onto that toilet like some deranged drunk begging for God at the end of a real bad bender.

"Breathe through your nose, you fool," Kurama instructed, totally unhelpful.

Naruto snarled, half-sobbing, half trying not to choke on his own sick. "SHUT UP!" he screamed.

There was so much fear in that scream.

Kurama went silent.

The force of the Kyūbi's chakra withdrew, hovered at the edges of Naruto's consciousness; flickering and spitting in the way of a snubbed animal, agitated by the fear, annoyed by the helplessness, but oddly compliant – maybe concerned. The warmth of his ever-present chakra beat a steady pulse.

Naruto tried to focus on that warmth…that pulse...

And not the phantom pain of his throat being torn out…

…maybe his heart too.

He wasn't sure how long he knelt there retching, or at what point he managed to crawl the short distance from the toilet to the shower, slamming on the water, gulping it, spitting it, coughing it up, spluttering and shaking as he slid down the tiles and curled into a ball at the bottom of the stall. He let the water pound down, uncaring of soaked clothes or shallow drowning.

He'd drowned already.

Ghost-blood filled his lungs, his throat, his eyes, pouring out of his mouth in a weak, croaking whisper. "Neji…"

"Didn't you say you wouldn't let any of your comrades die?"

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut on the echo of those words, on the agonising truth of them. He ground his forehead against the floor's rippling ceramic, mouth torn open in a silent scream, droplets quivering and spraying from his lips to skate across the puddling water with every pant.

It didn't stop there.

The hurt.

The shame.

The guilt.

It curled up inside Naruto as tight and foetal as his own body, compacting into a rock. He swallowed that rock, felt it descend into his chest. And as it sank, the pictures in his head – the people in his head – changed. The image went from death-fogged moonstone eyes and red-stained feathers to faceless yellow-black orbs with slits for pupils. Neji's lifeless body, cradled in his dream-arms, evaporating like so much fog, twisting into dark, dark mists that floated upwards like ink on water, the nightmare painting itself into a brand-new horror with swift inky strokes, a beast mimicry made living, like something Sai might've painted…

No.

No way.

No artist could've captured the likeness of the monster Naruto had seen in that red dream.

Shuddering out a breath, he tucked the useless stump of his elbow to his ribs and twisted halfway onto his back, raising his left hand in a weak drift to shield his face against the pounding spray. Hot water sluiced along his fingers, down his knuckles and along his forearm, raising his skin in a cold prickle – like he couldn't feel the heat.

Frowning, Naruto peeled his eyes open halfway.

Squinted through a crosshatch of damp stinging lashes and gathering steam.

Stared at his raised hand…

…and watched the red dream spill from his mind, superimposing its shadow atop his shaking limb, blue eyes growing wider, his breaths snagging harder, the slow-dawning shock stealing over his brain in a numb crawl.

What he looked at, wasn't what he saw.

Instead of wet tanned human flesh, water dripped from blackened glossy fur, the musculature of his arm completely changed, corded with gross unnatural bulk, the elongated palm and fingers tapering into long daggerlike claws that dripped a steady red, red, red.

Naruto's brain stalled on the vision, his mouth framing a weak, "Sora…?"

"No," Kurama said, his voice a gruff rumble in Naruto's freaked-out mind, as close to 'soft' as the Fox could probably get. "Not Sora."

It had to be Sora.

Because it sure as shit wasn't Kurama.

This feeling…

This hallucination of a partial bijū transformation…

It. Had. To. Be. Sora.

Naruto screwed his eyes shut. Conjured his memories of that mouthy, cantankerous, Fire Temple novice.

Sora.

A former jinchūrikimodoki – or pseudo-Jinchūriki. A rare case of someone who held the bijū chakra without containing the actual beast. Grey-haired. Brown-eyed. And kind of a dick. But a friend by the end of their short road. A friend who'd shared some of Naruto's pain, in the way only another Jinchūriki could, pseudo or not. Scrambling desperately, Naruto's mind forwarded through the reel of their brief time together and zoomed in on the memory of Sora's bandaged arm bursting through its pale wrappings in a demon fox deformity; an uncontrolled transformation from the Kyūbi's monstrous takeover. Naruto remembered it so clearly. Remembered seeing it. Feeling it. Because for a brief time he and Sora had been entangled empathically through the bijū energy, connected in their dreams, and then, later, in their waking hours.

But Sora was no longer a jinchūrikimodoki.

He was free of that dark chakra.

Was off travelling the world.

Or at least, Naruto hoped he was. Hoped he'd survived. Naruto no longer shared dreams, feelings, or weird telepathic mind-melds with Sora because Sora no longer housed the Kyūbi's chakra inside him. There was also the obvious fact that when Sora had housed that chakra, that chaos, his bijū arm had been red as hellfire…not black as…as…

"As shadows," Kurama supplied, his flat matter-of-factness at total odds with Naruto's escalating state of dread. "As black as darkness incarnate. Stop hiding, stop denying. You already know."

"No," Naruto's lips shaped the word around a tortured snarl, water splashing off his flashing teeth.

Shadows...

He could not open his eyes or his mind to that suggestion.

That lie.

Kurama snorted. "You dumb cub. You do this, it'll keep happening."

"Shut up," Naruto ground out, his words holding half the volume but all the fear of his earlier scream for Kurama to just, "S-shut up…"

Kurama did not shut up. Did not back off either. His energy drew closer, pressed harder, refusing to be snubbed this time, much less silenced. "It's not that Sora runt you're feeling, it's not him you're seeing," Kurama growled, his bottomless voice a bass note in the orchestra of panic pounding through Naruto's blood. "Look again. Open your eyes and look. Better yet, SEE."

Naruto didn't want to look or see. Hadn't wanted to look or see even in the red dream. But just like in the red dream, he did look. And just like in the red dream, he saw it all again. The bright sulphur eyes set in total darkness. A darkness that roiled then resolved into a giant vulpine maw, its crinkled muzzle shaping a sick Halloween grin, razor-toothed jaws breaking apart on a steaming growl, carving a deep zigzag line between the rows of gleaming, spit-streaked fangs, pulling wider and wider around a ravenous howl.

A howl that carried the shadow of a human scream.

Naruto knew that scream. Knew the person it belonged to as surely as he knew the shadows in which that screaming person was completely consumed. And again, just like in the red dream, Naruto did far more than look and see.

He felt.

He felt it all.

Despair ripping into his chest...teeth tearing into his throat...blood filling his mouth...his life draining away even though his heart had stopped dead in his chest just seconds before those fangs had sought to end him.

The despair had ended him first.

And that despair hadn't been his own.

Gasping against the pain in his heart, he finally remembered why, and who, and what that despair meant about the world…and everything that was wrong with it. Both the waking world. And the dreamworld.

It was all wrong.

It was all inside out.

And it was. All. His. Fault.

"You said 'I'll never let my comrades die'. Those were your words. Now, look around you and try to say them again."

The only thing Naruto said again was a name.

And it wasn't Sora.

And it wasn't really said – it was scraped out of him on a cracked and shaken sob.

"Shikamaru."

Kurama stilled at the confession, sent a flare of rough animal emotion flickering through the bleak canyon-wide hole that seemed to open up deeper inside of Naruto's mind, the Kyūbi's fox-fire warmth trying to catch a spark, light a fuse, keep the dark red thoughts away.

"Don't just lay here and snivel!" Kurama snapped. "You said it yourself. We have work to do. Take this pain like you've always taken it. Get up and use it."

Naruto didn't.

Kurama called him again, but Naruto didn't hear.

He lay paralysed under the cooling spray, staring at his human hand through blank and lightless eyes, no longer hallucinating, but hollowed out by the bottomless ache in his heart, the acid of the red dream eating into his wildly scrambling mind…

Nine black tails.

Wide grinning fangs.

Hellhound devil eyes.

"Hey Kid. Miss me?"

That roll-of-thunder growl shuddered through Naruto's memory, rattling him to the bones. What the hell was that voice? And whose voice? Not fully Kurama's – not as deep in its gravel – but still pitched to an earthquake rumble. Still immense. Still terrifying. Was that voice, that darkness, already living in Shikamaru before the Kyūbi's chakra had got stuck and twisted-up inside him? Is that even what'd happened? And if so, why? And why only Shikamaru? Why not anyone else that Naruto had tried to protect on that battlefield? Why not anyone else who'd been masked in the bijū's cloak?

It. Didn't. Make. Sense.

Maybe it didn't need to.

It was still his fault, wasn't it?

Just like Neji…

Outside the realm of his fevered brain, Naruto's body began to tremble, registering the drum of a thousand icy needles, his temperature plunging as the water ran colder…and colder…and his mind slipped further…and further…

His teeth began to chatter and grind.

Pruned fingers gnarling into a shaking fist.

Breathing coming fast and shallow.

It was at the point where colour began draining from his blue-tinged lips that Kurama's warmth grew hotter, emanating and bubbling up from Naruto's skin in a soft orange glow, the bijū-cloak bringing his temperature back up one thawing degree at a time.

"Hypothermia is what takes you out?" Kurama spat. "Pathetic. Get up now or I'm going to chew you a new asshole from the inside out. Even your insolent Uchiha brat would tell you to get a grip."

That, Naruto heard.

Sasuke.

Starting slightly, he stirred from his cold wet puddle at the bottom of the freezing stall, coming up out of the near-catatonic state one slow blink at a time. The bijū cloak bled back into his skin, pulling colour to the surface, melting strength back into his frozen limbs. His eyes cleared, sharpened, the sheen of tears gleaming hard as lacquer. He slapped his palm to the floor and pushed himself upright, controlled breaths firing through his nose.

Kurama hummed. "That's more like it."

Naruto shut off the cold spray and stepped out, one foot at a time, onto the bathroom floor, steam hissing and rising off his body from the sheer heat of Kurama's chakra, its molten current buzzing just beneath the surface of his skin.

The world dipped a little.

Snarling, Naruto grabbed hold of the sink for balance, eyes swinging up to the mirror to stare into his slitted pupils where Kurama gazed back out from within.

"The ANBU," Naruto croaked to his reflection. "Those bastards still outside?"

"Half," Kurama answered. "It's almost dawn." He paused for a tense moment. "Keep this fire in your belly. Don't go cold on me like that again. And I'm not talking about the shower."

A faint smile twisted Naruto's mouth. Sniffing, he leaned in closer to the mirror, close enough to see the red flecks glowing like cinders in his sad blue eyes. "Kurama…" he said softly, searching the red flecks for a long moment. "Thanks."

"Don't make it weird."

Naruto huffed a laugh, weak but honest. It fogged the mirror. Reaching out, he dragged his forearm across the condensation, wiping the glass clean. Two sky-coloured eyes gazed back at him now, all traces of the red gone, a stubborn blue light starting to break through the sad haunted look.

Tears still burned there.

So did pain.

And so did a new sense of purpose.

"Didn't you say you wouldn't let any of your comrades die?"

Naruto's grip tightened on the sink, his expression going taut and hard, feeling every one of those words. Every one of the people he'd lost. Every one of the people he still had left to lose.

Shikamaru.

Naruto's eyes flickered, dimmed. A shadow fell across his face, deepening lines, defining contours, colouring him in bleak stormy shades, so different to the usual spill of sun and smiles and silliness.

It was not a look his friends would recognise.

Sometimes, he wasn't so sure he recognised it himself. It aged him. Marked him like a scar. And maybe he needed to carry that. The way he carried so many scars. Maybe he was built for it. And he was okay with that. He had to be.

"Don't do this alone," Kurama cautioned suddenly, surprising Naruto, considering how badly Kurama had chewed him out earlier, reminding Naruto that there was no one lining up to help him out.

"No one from your usual do-gooder crowd," Kurama amended, listening in to Naruto's thoughts with his usual rude accuracy. "Don't look for allies in the light."

Frowning, Naruto cocked his head, in no mood for riddles. "Don't do that cryptic old-geezer talk. Just what're you sayin'?"

Kurama sighed. Very long and very loudly. Which read like a slow shake of the head. "Hopeless. I'm saying there are eyes better adjusted to the darkness than your own. Use them. Use him."

Flinching, Naruto's head ticked back, a flash of unease crossing his expression before the strain bled from his face, everything softening for a moment. The unspoken name, one of the many scars he carried, itched inside him.

Sasuke…

Kurama didn't confirm it.

He didn't need to.

Wrestling with that itching scar, and the pain that welled beneath it, Naruto searched his reflection for a brief uncertain moment before he gazed straight past it, doing what he always did, looking beyond himself and what he needed to the people who needed him more.

Shikamaru.

This time, when the blue light flickered in his darkening eyes, it did not go out.

---

TBC.

Endnotes:

Rikumaru – one of the Nara clan's stags (In the anime, Rikumaru stood by Shikamaru's side while he buried Hidan.)

Bijū – tailed beast(s)

Jinchūriki – humans that have tailed beasts sealed within them (Naruto, Killer Bee etc.)

Inoichi-shishō / Shikaku-shishō – meaning "Master Inoichi" and "Master Shikaku"

Jinchūrikimodoki – 'pseudo-Jinchūriki', when someone has had tailed beast's chakra sealed into themselves, but not the beast itself, that person is considered a pseudo-jinchūriki (Sora was considered as such)

A/N: Hello, lovelies. Had to cut this chapter in half to get it out quicker. Required way more energy-ammo than I had locked and loaded. Been battling this burnout with knives in a gunfight, hence the delay in getting this next instalment up. I hope that those of you still enjoying the BtB madness can spare me some time to drop a review. There's been a sad lack and sharp decline regarding reader engagement in the fanfic communities it seems, which doesn't bode well for us hungry writers. If the story isn't sparking much interest or discussion, I'll probably shift my focus to other projects. It's important for me to know that my work is connecting with you all. For those of you who still do, and who have, taken the time to drop your feedback, reviews, messages etc. (whether over here on over on TUMBLR) please know that I'm so damned grateful for the love, chakra-exchange, and support that you give me – you are the reason I keep going whilst slogging through the trenches of burnout. My thanks runneth over, always. x

A/N 2: Questions? Thoughts? Write me here or hit me up over at Tumblr under okamirayne and drop me an ASK (Anonymous asks enabled); I'll do my best to answer.

A/N 3: PLEASE NOTE: 's email alerts don't appear to be working, so please watch this space, or keep an eye on my social media spaces (BtB Series Facebook page and/or my TUMBLR) for updates on chapters until can sort this issue. Cheers!